


Fire and Ice

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV)
Genre: F/F, Female Characters, Female Protagonist, Ficlet, Minor Character(s), POV Alternating, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Minor Character, Past Tense, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-05
Updated: 2007-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:50:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	Fire and Ice

_Caged (Kitty)_

Two years they gave me for what I did, and would do again, when I brought the Baron's inside to his outside. It's two years I'm not going to forget in a hurry.

She came to see me, in my dirty clothes and my hands rubbed raw, she in her white dress, pearled and queenly. At least so she seemed at first; but she let me see her ice breaking. I could see the animal had had his way with her after all, at least in some way, though I imagine I'd saved her from the worst.

Apologies and tears and gratitude. I never thought she'd melt so. But even less did I think she'd be coming back to see me, every week for two years.

I was sure that, on the last, she wouldn't be there; a prisoner is one thing, a freed convict quite another, to be around with, to pity, and help. I've no illusions.

I expect I cried a little, the night before, in my corner of the cell, under cover of darkness. In this place you learn to cry quietly. Oh, I wanted out more than anything; well… more than anything, except one other thing.

  
_Freed (Kitty)_

They gave me back my old clothes, handed by Beetle Woodley. I looked him straight in the eye and could see him begin to reach for his baton, but he couldn't now, could he, since I was a free woman and I'd given him no worser offence than a good eyeballing. And I smiled at him and I didn't say thank you and I didn't call him sir, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

I dressed in my old clothes (two years out of date and rat-nibbled, but clean) and walked out into daylight clutching my papers. It was a bright morning, and I felt naked and dirty before it.

I should find Porky, I should ask around for work. I hoped my old friends would still be friends; I might get apprenticed to Big Sally, and be a bouncer one day at one of the women's bars. Convictions, in some circles, become free passes.

I didn't think she'd come. I did not think she'd be there. When the cab pulled up, I didn't even look up.

But I heard her voice, then, and turned half around, and her cool little fingers closed around mine, and her cool smooth cheek pressed against mine, and her creamy overcoat sullied with the dirt still under my fingernails.

Suddenly I had no plans anymore; no future, nothing to hold on to, nothing but Violet de Merville. I felt it then, like a kick in the gut: I was free.

  
_Hesitation (Kitty)_

She bought me dinner in a little café, too low for her sort, too high for mine; unsuited to both our dresses. There we sat, the general's daughter and the convict, opposite the same table, joined by years of companionship and, before that, the ravages of the same man.

She knew about my scars, the marks of vitriol I hid under my dress, under my hair. He'd marked me, and so I'd marked him; what marks she carried weren't on the outside.

Two years ago I'd had nothing but hatred in me, the hatred passionate love turns to when it turns out your lover's a dog instead of an angel. I thought I'd feel nothing else for as long as I lived, but the Baron is as good as killed, and I've had my vengeance.

I had no time to feel empty before my new passion showed up. Seems I can't live without needing. Twenty-four months of work and pain that I can't even remember anymore as anything but the background to my passion.

I run my fingers over hers, a wonderful privilege. I think of the Baron one last time, with guilty conscience:

After him, will she love me?

  
_Action (Violet)_

I swear to you that we are one.

United is not a strong enough word.

They call me spiritual, pure. They call me a lot of things that I know she is.

They call her things that make me want to rip their eyes out. Even my poor father. I have a hundred offences I need to make up to him, and yet I cannot grant him this one thing.

She's mine, and I am hers.

I won't subject her to society. Society can be worse than… well, it is the worst thing that I know of, at any rate. It's wanted little enough to do with me lately, as it is.

I shall take her to America. Or Australia.

We can be coarse together, where nobody minds. I can learn to swear and spit.

I have to ask her, tell her my mind, all the things I couldn't say or do when prison bars separated us, and guards stood behind our backs as we talked, worse than chaperones. I can't stop looking at her. I can't yet begin thinking, or speaking.

Her fingers close upon mine. Oh Kitty, Kitty.

Forgetting all the eyes upon as, I kiss her lips.

  
_Reaction_

"There's such a thing as too much kindness. I understand wanting to help the woman, but to make her a companion?"

"I hear the woman is a prostitute."

"A convict! Isn't that worse? Poor Violet will wake up some morning with a bottle of vitriol over her face…"

"Oh, heavens! You shouldn't say such things, Em."

"I only speak with her best interest at heart. She shouldn't mix with that sort."

"She's always been a headstrong one. In the affair of the Baron nothing could persuade her, as you recall."

"I'd rather wish them both well, poor girls. Another bisquit?"


End file.
